It's Been A While...

...Almost three months since my last real blog post?  Really?  (The last two were just acknowledgement of my little hiatus.)

Mono kicked my hiney.  There are still some days I yawn at work (not a good thing for a therapist to do a whole lot of), and I'm amazed still at how fast I can feel exhausted.  Mostly though, I have more days now where I feel "normal," so I'll take it.

But really...  Where to begin?

November...  National Adoption Month.  Thanksgiving.  Most years I have a lot to say about both.  Our November tradition around here is to focus on gratitude by naming things we're thankful for every day and trying to fill up our kernel jar.

This year I heard a question early in November that made our gratitude focus a little different.  The question was "Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch me or one of my family members this day?"

As imperfectly as we could with crazy teen schedules and a parent with mono, we tried to focus on this question when we talked about gratitude.  ...Different twist, and I think a great way for us to focus attention on how God's hand is in the details.

Also on Thanksgiving Day, Tim and I celebrated our 18th anniversary.  Happy day.

We even left the kids overnight the weekend prior to Thanksgiving to celebrate...  All by themselves...  All five of them...  And the house was still here when we got back...  And they're all still alive.  

I know.  Amazing.  

And there's more...  So much, much more, but I'm sure we'll catch up.  Or not.  Either way, I think I'm blogging again.  Time will tell.

He Said, She Said...

Starting to talk about grief again brings up all kinds of things.

It's not rocket science that men and women experience grief differently.  Along with that experience is also the understanding that grief itself is a very individual process.  None of us grieve the same way, and none of us communicate the same way.  Life puts us in situations together, but experience puts us through circumstances alone.

On the surface, it would seem that Tim and I both experienced the same loss.  Underneath, our losses were quite different, and sadly, in all those years of just getting through, we were so buried in our own grief experiences that it was too easy to dismiss the grief experiences of the other person.

I remember Tim expressing that adding Joie to our family created a loss for our children of their own former sibling relationships.  Before Joie came into our family, Nate, Megan, and Jeran were close.  After Joie came into our family, the boys went through the loss of their sister.  Megan was still there, but now she had a sister.  Megan felt the loss too.  She felt pressure to be nice to Joie, and sacrificed her relationship with her brothers, who she missed.  Then she'd get mad at Joie...  And at Nate and Jeran...  And Nate and Jeran were mad at Joie...  And at Megan...

Tim also expressed grief over the loss of our family as we knew it.  For nine years we had been a family of five, and in less than a week, following indescribable loss, we became a family of six.  Of course we were happy that Joie was still with us, but when Tim would express grief over the loss of our family as we had known it, I got upset because I felt like that burden was too much to put on Joie.  I dismissed his grief as "wrong," because "She doesn't have a choice.  She didn't ask to lose her family and insert herself in our family."

At the same time, I was grieving the loss of my baby sister, and was overwhelmed with the loss Joie and our children were facing, along with the adjustments we were all making as we tried to become a family.  Some days it felt like every ounce of emotional energy was spent getting everyone else through the day, and I had nothing left for me.  Tim lived this every day as well, but not in the same way, and there was something in me that said he was so wrapped up in the logistics of taking care of the estate and horses, and details I hadn't even thought of that I couldn't burden him with my grief.

Still, he knew how difficult this was for me.  Then five months after the accident, I said I wanted to go with  my sisters to see the police report.  I wanted to know more than we knew, and I didn't care what I was about to find out.  I just needed to know.  Tim response:  "No.  I won't let you go."

We do not have one of those relationships where we ask permission.  In fact, that is the only time I think I've ever heard either one of us forbid the other from doing something.  I remember walking away from him saying, "I'm not asking permission."

He followed me downstairs where I was changing laundry.  I don't remember the whole conversation after that, but I do remember Tim saying, "I can't have you fall apart."

Part of me loved that I was needed, and in a vulnerable, sweet way Tim was saying he relied on me to be me.  At the same time (who knows why) under the self-imposed pressure we were already both feeling to get it right, those words burned into my brain and didn't leave.  No matter what, I wouldn't fall apart.  I'd be fine.

Viewing the police report actually went well.  What we had imagined was far worse than anything that was actually in the report.  At the same time, I know from that point on, I didn't try much to share my grief with Tim.  In my mind, I thought I'd heal, and he'd heal and we'd get back to being who we were before.

Meanwhile, if Tim would bring up concerns that we weren't sharing things with each other, I would, in my overwhelmed state, dismiss his concerns.  I couldn't handle one more thing.

I paint a pretty tense and difficult picture of our relationship during that time.  In reality, quite the opposite was true.  We were close in a lot of ways, and even though we weren't understanding each other's grief, we were moving through this whole experience together, and watching our family collectively and individually heal from tragedy.  Spiritually, emotionally, and physically our whole family grew closer.

...And farther apart in other ways.  It seems like for a both Tim and I, if things didn't fit in the happy, healing box, neither of us wanted to hear about it.

...And as I've said before, it's what we weren't sharing that became the issue.  This year as Tim started traveling, we started into the same patterns.  I wouldn't burden him with my stress.  He was too exhausted.  He wouldn't burden me with his stress.  I had enough on my plate.  The end result:  No outlet...  Actually, that's not true.  Stress finds it's own outlet, eventually...sometimes in not so healthy ways, which of course, just added to the stress.

At the same time, some extended family problems and conflicts added to the tension.  What had been my support system felt like it was crumbling.

So Tim and I find ourselves turning to each other, and hearing stories about our experiences in all of this we haven't shared before.  I heard for the first time the other day about his friend at work who would walk up to Tim when they were on shift together and say, "Man, you look like I felt a few years ago."  This man was raising his grand daughter, and recovering from the double suicide loss of his son and daughter-in-law.  Tim found a friend in him, and was able to talk.

The other day someone in the family had asked about a picture from the funeral, and I pulled them up on my computer.  There, in front of me, were all the images of loss, and the feelings along with it, just as real as the day it happened.  My old self would have just grieved alone.  Instead I asked Tim if he had time to look through the pictures with me.  We talked for several hours about what we remembered and experienced.

And guess what?  During times when we both felt alone, we were also able to identify ways we were there with each other and for each other.

After all is said and done, I still sort of wish there was a reset button.  Wouldn't that be great?  But really, if we had known then that our individual response to grief would lead to relationship stress now, what would we have done differently?  To be honest, what could we have done differently?  It's just one more in a long list of things we have no control over in this process.  (And as long as there is a reset button, we all know the real reset point would be Joie not losing her family...just saying.)   Ultimately, I guess as long as we're here, and as long as the end result of relationship distance is relationship healing, that's a good thing...

Sort of...

(Wishing for that reset button again...)

Ultimately, none of us would choose this, but if we could unchoose it (spell checker is saying that isn't a word, but I don't care), that would also mean unchoosing the life we're living now and the people we're becoming because of having to dig down deep to discover healing.  None of us would do that.  (Ok--maybe sometimes.)

My relationship analogy the other day as Tim and I were talking:  Remember when Megan was 4 or 5 and playing soccer?  We knew she was awesome--a gifted athlete, even back then.  But what if she stayed that same 4-5 year old soccer player?  What if she was never coached, and never improved?  It wouldn't matter how gifted she was, she wouldn't be playing soccer in a grown-up kid game.

...Same with relationships.  Good relationships grow.  They have to, or we'd all keep playing as pre-schoolers.

So here's to growth...  And digging down deep...  In a story that is never over, because as soon as it seems like it's over there's just one more layer...

Sort of like this:

(Image credit:  goodtherapy.org)

More About Relationships

Still talking about Tim and I and relationships, and still thinking out loud.  (This picture is Tim and I in thirty years...just in case you were wondering.)

There's a saying that a good marriage isn't defined by the absence of problems, but by the way partners handle the problems they have.

A few years ago Tim and I got sideswiped by life, and to be honest, we've done our best to get through and patted ourselves on the back for being so amazing.  (We've decided as we've talked about all of this that we deal well with challenges.)  And before I jump into talking about the resulting problems, I feel the need to say when we talk about problems it's important to keep it all in perspective... healing of grief and trauma in our family is huge, and along the way we've also shared the joy of seeing that dark cloud lift and the joy of bringing two new child into our family...an amazing journey, for sure.

In the process, it's what we didn't share that has been the problem.  And it feels good to be talking about that again.  We have referred to it as being real with each other.

It feels a little Velveteen Rabbit-ish.

“What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"


"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."


"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.


"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."


"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"


"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. 


"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”   


The good news is we don't break easily, or have to be carefully kept.  The bad news is we're loose in the joints and shabby (but I'm not giving up my make-up or giving up coloring my hair any time soon).

Real feels vulnerable but good, and certainly better than self-imposed pressure.

Real also means sometimes we still struggle...and disagree over dumb things like driver's ed and taking down a tent (yes, really).  It also means that we can be honest about what we really need, and get over it quickly.  (Huge, yes?)

Real is also recognizing that even people who are amazing at getting through challenges can feel the odd effects of trauma--even all these years later (and I'm sure I have so much more to say about that but not right now).

Real is also remembering all the times in the overwhelming deluge of events in the past few years that we have been there for each other.  Tim was remembering some of those times tonight, and as we started recalling, it felt good to look back and re-write that narrative with both of us in it together, because really we were.  We just couldn't see it at the time--kind of like standing in front of a grizzly bear and trying to notice the songbirds in the trees behind the bear.

Aren't relationships interesting?

Hi, It's Me Again

Funny thing about writing...  I need to do it.

Funny thing about writing about stress... It tends to go away.

To stop writing about all of this right when I was finally putting it in words was almost impossible for me.  (So chalk another one up to crazy grief...which I'll say more about later.)  Not writing was like trying to plug a fountain with a finger.

The other day a colleague said to me, "We are harder on ourselves than anyone else ever would be."  He had just made a difficult decision, and was worrying about how his decision would affect other people.

So why do we think so much about what other people think?  I want to be one of those people who doesn't care--not in a cynical, insensitive way, but in a way that is just 100% comfortable in my own skin. And somehow throwing all this out there, and exploring all this with Tim, and letting it float around in my own brain blog is helping.

So as I wrap my brain around the idea that trauma and grief can still affect us this much all these years later, you all can tune in (or not).  Either way, at the end of the day it's me and the people under my own roof that matter most.

And do you know what's really amazing?  They all think I'm amazing.  Right here at home, where it matters most, we're working together to get it right every day just like every other family.

I can get irritated at teen sluggishness, and trails of shoes and clothes all over the house, and 10 minutes later we can all be ok with each other again.

Case in point (because I can't resist a good story)...

Yesterday Nate was in trouble.  And I told him so...  And I told him he had to "dig his way out of this hole."  About five minutes later I was loading the dishwasher (I do that once in a while) and I looked up to see him standing at the back door with a shovel in his hand.  I got it, but I was trying really, really hard not to laugh...because he was in trouble and I'm the mom and I'm not supposed to laugh if they're in trouble, right?  (By the way, I stink at not laughing when something is funny.)  I tried to ignore him, but he just stood there, and when I looked up again, all I could see was dimples...  Then he said, "I was wondering how you dig yourself out of a hole.  Technically, if you're digging, aren't you going in deeper?"

Laughter!

It was one of the best mea culpas I've ever seen.  I hope his wife appreciates that humor some day.

It's moments like that that make me amazed that these six other human beings who I love so much love me back.  At the end of the day all I have to give them is support, time (that's a hard one) and love.  And balance all that with work, home, friends, church...  (Psshht...  No sweat.)

And the best part is this new freedom to fail (which we always knew was a part of life, but just couldn't say it).  And there is relief in that, and even humor because we can say it out loud now and hear how crazy it sounds.  The other day Tim threw out the idea that if we can now fail, can we also fail and failing and therefore succeed?  Obviously, Nate is his son, because I laughed at that one also.

Either way, in the four days since I've said I'm not blogging, all this has been floating around in my brain and needed to be said.  And getting it down on paper helps me make sense it all...sort of.  I know I've said many times since this all happened that you can't make sense of senseless.

And even though I might think I'm the only one who feels this way, I'm sure I'm not.

Funny how just the opposite of what I thought I needed is what I need.

(And some good news...  Tim has day shifts for most of the rest of the summer...and 3 day weekends.  How amazing is that?  Right when we needed the gift of time, we got it.  Blessings.  I love them.)

Just to Clarify

Note to self:  Don't hit publish at 2:00 in the morning.

Warning to everyone else:  Read the previous post with caution.

I do think I might have alarmed a few people with that last post, so just to clarify:  Tim and I are married and in love.

But just to better explain my last post, I thought of an analogy.  On March 11, 2011 there was an earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Over a  year later, many of us have forgotten the devastation, but were reminded recently as debris from the tsunami started washing ashore half way around the world.  The debris has been floating in the currents of the Pacific, undetected until it washed ashore.  It was mysterious and amazing, as so many things in nature are, and a reminder of the power of Mother Nature that the effects of that earthquake and tsunami could be felt all these months later.  Although people in Japan continued to recover, many of the rest of us have forgotten, and as is human, we focus on our own lives and challenges.

Almost 5 years ago, our family and many, many others were affected by the deaths of Ruth, Nick and Audrey.  The initial effects of this loss were tremendous on all those who experienced it (not just our family, but many, many others).  Within months of this loss, many people had moved on and little by little, so did we.  Then several months ago, Tim and I started to notice debris from this tragedy washing ashore in our relationship.  It surprised us, and caught us off guard, but was a reminder of the power of this kind of tragedy, and the need to continue the healing process.  On the other side of that healing is more family growth, and new and deeper meaning about life and love and family, which makes us thankful again we have each other.

One of the pieces of debris we noticed was our own self-imposed need to get this all right.  No mistakes allowed.  To much was at stake.  It put us in a place in our relationship where we didn't want to burden each other with our worries, fears, challenges, etc. because we understood how much each other already had on our plates.  We were too busy dealing with what was in front of us to worry about the possibility of what might wash ashore later.

It's now later, and it's a relief to us both to be able to be at this point, and yet a reminder of the power of the kind of loss we've been through, as well as the losses our children have been through.  It is likely that grief/loss/trauma debris will continue to wash ashore for years to come.  At this particular point, I just wanted a break in my mind from blogging about it all.

That's it.  Nothing more.

Family.  Forever, for always, no matter what. 

(And Tim--I'm still looking for that guest post.)

Goodbye...Sort of

Has anyone noticed how blog posts are dwindling?   For a lot of reasons, I just don't have blogging in me right now.  I won't say I'm not going to post on here anymore, because you know me...always something to say.  I'm just taking a break from this for now...kind of like a summer break.  

And as fate would have it, something funky happened to my blog formatting last week, and as I was messing with the template to bring our blog back to life, I started reading back over our blog.  I wasn't in a great place that day, and as I kept seeing the word "healing" I kept asking myself what that really meant.

I think at one point I wished it meant there would be a time where we might be able to peel back the proverbial band-aid and magically not see a scar, even though I knew that we'd feel the ripples of tragedy for a lifetime.  

In reality, I've known healing is a journey, and that is where this brings us now...to a new point in our journey.

Recently Tim and I have recognized that in the process of bringing Joie into our family, we both felt a lot of pressure to get this right.  Neither of us felt like we could fail.  

Don't get me wrong...  What we have is beautiful.  It has been an amazing experience to be a part of this journey of Joie's (and now Gabby's) life.  At the same time, it's probably safe to say that no one ever asks to become a member of the grief/loss/trauma club...  Four years and ten months ago, we woke up one morning and were just going about the day...  Then there was that phone call no one wants to hear...  And so it was that we woke up one morning as a family of five and went to sleep five days later as a family of six and during those five days, ripples were set into motion that effect us still today.

Which brings me back to what Tim and I have been recognizing...the pressure to get it right.  

At some point early in this journey, there was an unspoken agreement between Tim and I that we couldn't fail.  Two huge extended families had trusted us to raise Joie, and in our eyes, at the time she joined our family, she was collectively the child of the Campbells and Weavers...not ours.  It still sometimes feels like we can't say "ours."  

Which brings me to another point where it feels imperative we get this right...

We're all hoping to float around on clouds one day with Nick, Ruth, and Audrey, and it would be really, really, really awkward if we all showed up to greet them without Joie.  Can you imagine that conversation?  Uhhh...Sorry guys.  We failed.  It turns out we weren't the right ones to get her through her difficult life.  

And so it goes, on and on...never failing, only getting it right...  (And to Campbells and Weavers and everyone else who supports us, we should clarify we're talking about pressure we put there ourselves in some kind of twisted impression that we had control over any of this during a time when we were grasping at trying to stay in control of something...anything.)    

As it turns out, Mr. Can't Fail has been a sort of invisible, lurking member of our family for a long time, and we're just starting to figure it out.  (For fans of narrative therapy, wasn't that great use of stepping away from the problem?  I even named it...huge pat on the back.)

So what does that have to do with not blogging?  (Yes...there's a long answer.)  

We started this blog as a way to stay connected to people who loved Joie.  Way back when, it was through blogging that we got to know Joie's extended family, who have become like our own extended family.  We love them more than we can say, and have appreciated their support of us in raising Joie.  Also as Gabby joined our family, blogging continued to be a way to let people in Gabby's life know how she was doing.

Then along the way, more people started joining in our little blogging community as our blog was shared on adoption forums, grief forums, and in other more public ways.  I get traffic from everywhere on this blog.  In a way, it was good to share our story, and to know that our story was helping others, and maybe some day there will be another time and place for that...

Meanwhile, at the end of the day, the people under our own roof matter most.  As Tim and I have talked about this pressure we've felt since Joie joined our family, we've also become aware of the effect that unrealistic pressure has on our own relationship.  As a couple, it's hard to be ourselves with each other if we have to worry about getting it right all the time...  (So we went back to talking about our fears last night...and weaknesses...and it felt good to be real again.)

And don't get me wrong.  We superimposed that pressure before we started blogging...but consciously or unconsciously, we're living part of our story through the eyes of other people.  I'm a huge believer in looking up, not looking out or around us as we live life...

(Short break.)

As I was getting ready to post this, I called and read it to Tim over the phone.  He is on his way back from Manti with the kids.  He took them to the Manti Pageant while I worked today.  (Huge bummer for me.)  As I was reading it to him, I could tell he was a little surprised I was doing this.  I asked him what he felt was missing.  As we talked, the take-away was the irony of this situation--something else we would want people to know.  In all our attempts to not fall apart, we really have fallen apart in our own ways...then we put pressure on each other not to fall apart.  Crazy cycle.  Crazy grief.  Crazy trauma.  There is no way but through.

And so it is that we say our sort-of "for now" good-bye.  

For family, we'll take our boring day-to-day blog somewhere else...

For everyone else, thank you for the support and kind words.  There is life after loss.  There is healing after grief.  We know it.  We live it every day.  

Family:  Forever, for always, no matter what.   

P. S.  Stay tuned.  Tim said he had something to post...  And for anyone who remembers, it was breaking news when he read this blog before, and he has left long comments on occasion that should be posts themselves (see links inside the breaking news post).  If I knew taking a blogging break would get him to guest post, I would have done it long ago!

P. P. S.  Today I added a clarification to this post after I successfully alarmed several family members...hope this helps to clarify.